At the end of FIT-2012 (http://www.fit.edu.pk/) there was a panel discussion in which cloud computing was presented as an excellent option for Pakistan to leap frog the problem of setting up expensive power consuming data centers. The fact that we have load shedding problem in Pakistan was presented as a very important motivating factor for move towards adoption of cloud computing. I have two objections to this solution in the current scenario which I present with historical background.

http://www.babymilka.../babykiller.pdf tells how baby milk manufactures dressed their sales girls as nurses who persuaded unsuspecting mothers to abandon mother’s milk in favor of powder milk. Among the reasons given was the inadequate amount of milk that mothers were able to produce. Except for a very small percentage ( in single digit ) majority of mothers are fully capable of producing adequate milk for their babies. But once a baby is hooked up to something other than mother’s milk it is almost impossible to get back to mother’s milk for both the baby and the mother. This means that a single pack of free sample powder milk that the company provided made sure that they have a totally dependent customer for at least one year. Similarly if we get “hooked” on free or very cheap “cloud” now because we cannot produce enough electricity we can rest assure that we will pay a very heavy price in the long run. I am sorry but if any one doubts that then he/she does not understand capitalism.

“In 1944, the Bretton Woods system fixed exchange rates based on the U.S. dollar, which was redeemable for gold by the U.S. government at the price of $35 per ounce. In other words, the U.S. dollar was based on the gold standard. But on August 15, 1971, Nixon issued Executive Order 11615, and unilaterally "closed the gold window", ending convertibility between U.S. dollars and gold.” http://en.wikipedia....iki/Nixon_Shock This basically meant that the US government told other countries that it is no longer going to give them the gold which legally belonged to them. US being US did what it wanted and got away with it. If we put all of our data ( grades of our students, medical history of our families etc ) in US hands and expect not be exploited at some later point in time than we are fools who do not learn from history.

I would suggest :

The problem of load shedding should be fixed instead of making it as a basis of another much bigger problem.

We partner with friendly/trust worth countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Iran, Egypt etc and build our “cloud” by sharing/replicating resources. This will also solve the problem of under-utilization of resources when it is night in Pakistan.

I am afraid that if we don't take practical steps to build our own cloud than in less than five years time almost all of data will be in US hands. Keep in mind what India does to the flow of our rivers and than imagine what US will do when all of our data ( CT scans, doctor's prescriptions, student grades etc ) will be in US control. At that point our doctor's won't be able to operate because the data needed to operate will be in US. Our universities won't be able to issue transcripts because student grades will be in US.

cloud computing or the CLOUD need not be on the internet or in datacenter in the US. You can have such a system over a private network which completely isolated from the internet and is installed at a national level.

Also, if the shift is to use cloud computing due to power shortage, then the real solution is to address the power shortage itself. Even cloud computing needs a lot of power and that only be assessed if you combine the overall energy requirements of each computing resource

Cloud computing sounds very attractive but the real issue is that is a connection of disparate systems that can either be on or off and the overall computing power can change dramatically over time.

The best way to address your concern is to first fully understand your concept and this would mean that you provide a complete documentation and design of such a solution. Only then can we have a fruitful discussion. Otherwise, the sky is the limit and IT is the new sky.

The OP makes a good point. Lamdacore i think he covers your mentioned concerns when he says we need to setup our own clouds. In my opinion cloud computing is no alternative to having uninterupted power supplies, even if cloud computing means we can access data in the event of a power cut, think about the means in which we access it, unless you're using devices like laptops or tablets with batteries, PC's can't run in a power outage. Most small and medium size companies in the UK use remote data centres for backups and have local data centres too. You have to consider in Pakistan a lot of companies won't have the bandwith to operate on a large scale if all their data is stored remotely off site.

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